(a) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an automatic vending machine, and more particularly to a novel automatic vending machine having a mechanism adapted to count a quantity of commodities purchased, by weighing the weight of commodities, while providing a commodity-housing body in the form of a display stand.
(B) Description of the Prior Art
Recently, an automatic vending machine has found a wide application pursuant to popularization of a super-market and self-service sales station of a department store, for the purposes of effective utilization of an area of a sales station and saving man power. At the present time, an automatic vending machien as used in a manless super-market has made a tremendous progress in this field. Thus, description will be given of the aforesaid prior art automatic vending machine in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 shows an outlook of a display stand which stores or retains commodities on shelves. In case commodities are sold in a display stand of this type, a great quantity of commodities are displayed for purchasers and the purchasers may take out commodities of a desired quantity out of commodities placed on shelves, while one can not automatically obtain sales-information of commodities, such as an identification number, nomenclature, quantity, unit price, total charge and the like.
FIGS. 2 and 3 show an automatic vending machine having a considerable depth, which is used in a prior art manless super-market. More particularly, a body proper of an automatic vending machine includes: a plurality of units 1, each of which houses commodities aligned in the depthwise direction and allows commodities to be taken out from the front; and a shopping-card inserting slit 2, into which a shopping card is to be inserted. Still more specifically, the units 1 are placed in the front portion of the machine for ease in taking out commodities and each consists of a small door 3 which is adapted to be opened or closed due to a shopping card being inserted, a double-taking-out-operation-preventive shutter 5 which permits only one commodity to be taken out of commodities 4, a commodity push plate 6 adapted to push a commodity towards a purchaser, a drive motor 7 which forces a commodity 4 towards a purchaser. Such a prior art automatic vending machine is composed of a number of parts, so that the construction of the machine is complex and suffers from frequent troubles in addition to a failure in moving commodities smoothly.
On the other hand, when commodities 4 are housed or stored in an automatic vending machine, operators suffer from difficulty in charging these commodities into units 1, because of small inner space of the unit 1, and has to expend a considerable time for such an operation due to a number of units 1. In addition, since the commodities 4 are moved by means of a drive motor 7, a purchaser has to take out commodities one after another, when he or she wants a plurality of commodities at a time, so that a purchaser has to wait until he can obtain commodities of a desired quantity. Still furthermore, a number of parts including the drive motor 7 leads to a high price of an automatic vending machine. As is apparent from the foregoing, the prior art automatic vending machine suffers from many shortcomings.
Another prior art automatic vending machine, unlike the aforesaid unit type machine, is so constructed that the front of the machine is enclosed with a glass plate, and baskets are placed interiorly thereof for taking out commodities therefrom. Thus, commodities to be purchased are placed in a basket and then the basket is moved towards a purchaser. This type automatic vending machine also involves the aforesaid shortcomings experienced with a unit type automatic vending machine.